Sham marriages in Life’s Exit Lounge

Predatory marriages and UK inheritance law

The abuse of marriage is usually associated with deceiving the immigration authorities of a state to obtain residence by people who have no intention of living together as man and wife. Marriages of convenience are less of a problem in UK these days because it finally dawned on the government to nip the problem in the bud by controlling who is allowed to marry at the point at which a couple apply to marry to the local marriage registrar who is now authorised to report suspicious marriages to the ministry of interior.

With a little training it is relatively easy for marriage registrars to spot marriages of convenience or sham marriages in which the institution of marriage is being abused solely as a vehicle to enable a non-national to acquire settlement.

But marriages of convenience are not only used to circumvent immigration control. In the UK a new variant marriage of convenience – the predatory marriage – is becoming more widespread than marriage registrars across the country realise.

Fortune seeking bounders, cads and chancers target dying women whom they literally marry “till death us do part” very shortly afterwards so they can claim the whole of their estate leaving the deceased’s blood relatives dumbfounded that such a pernicious abuse of the institution of marriage happened to their loved one.

The law in England is conducive to this phenomenon because of the financial advantages it accords surviving spouses. In the absence of a will made after marriage, in England a surviving spouse inherits the whole of a deceased’s immovable assets in the UK and movable assets worldwide. Immovable assets abroad devolve in accordance with the law of the place in which they are situated but everything else goes to the surviving spouse.

The underlying purpose of the law is to buttress the institution of marriage which in UK is encouraged not only by tax incentives but also by wiping the inheritance slate clean on marriage. The law provides that when a person gets married any previous will before marriage is revoked. Thus, only if the deceased makes a fresh will after marriage would a surviving spouse in a predatory marriage inherit what the deceased intends – if anything.  Unfortunately, not many vulnerable dying people who fall victim to predators have access to a solicitor to advise them to make a will after marriage.

In the UK there is in principle freedom of testamentary disposition, but it is subject to a heavy inheritance tax burden in line with general principles of redistributive justice except that a surviving spouse inherits tax free.

Assets outside the UK do not escape the clutches of the UK taxman if a deceased person is deemed to have been domiciled in UK when they died. In Cyprus there is not the same freedom of testamentary disposition but there is no inheritance tax at all – which rich families prefer – and therefore no reference to inheritance laws in the double-taxation agreement between Cyprus and UK.

As a result, Cypriots deemed domiciled in UK at time of death are liable to pay UK inheritance tax on the value of any immovable as well as movable assets in Cyprus above the inheritance threshold – but as always not if a person inherits as a surviving spouse.

UK tax law deems those resident in UK to be domiciled there if they have been resident for at least 15 years of the last 20 tax years immediately before the tax year in which they died. So, although there is no inheritance tax in Cyprus, Cypriots deemed domiciled in the UK at the time of death – other than surviving spouses – are liable to pay UK inheritance tax on their movable and immovable assets in Cyprus.

The point here, however, is that although in the UK both inheritance and tax law are designed to promote the institution of marriage, not enough safeguards exist to curtail the activities of interloper predators.

Predator marriages are not properly investigated to weed out those who target the dying and the vulnerable.  Procedurally, to get married you normally have to give 28 days’ notice to the marriage registrar and you need to attend the council’s registry office for the marriage to be solemnised there. However, if say a bride is dying and is too ill to attend the register office a predator bridegroom can unilaterally apply to the Registrar General’s for a licence to marry his terminally-ill bride by her deathbed without the need to attend a council register office and without giving the usual 28 days’ notice.

There may be a good reason for someone to marry a terminally-ill patient, but the starting point must always be to view such marriages with a good deal of healthy cynicism. People do not normally marry their partners on their deathbed and so a marriage to someone about to die should be subjected to rigorous scrutiny to ensure the dying patient has full capacity to understand the implications of marriage on his or her estate after they pass.

The first thing to consider is whether the terminally-ill patient has capacity not just to understand the motivation of their partner relevant to the decision to marry, but to weigh such matters as the consequences of marriage to one’s estate upon one’s imminent death.

Unlike immigration marriages of convenience that are treated as sham marriages, predatory marriages are not treated by marriage registrars with the same degree of suspicion even though it is often obvious that a marriage will only last a few days and then only in what the Germans call ausfahrt warteraum – the exit lounge. Now what kind of marriage is that?

Alper Ali Riza is a queen’s counsel in the UK and a retired part-time judge